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Welcome to Unpacking the Mass with Keith Nestor. On this podcast, we dig into the week's readings for the upcoming Sunday for the Catholic Church so that when you go to Mass, you are ready to hear what God has to say to you through the Scriptures. So grab your Bibles and let's get digging. Hey, friends, welcome to Unpacking the Mass. Today we're looking at the readings for the sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time here in Year A. I hope you are doing well, my friends. Let's begin with the word of prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, so oftentimes we can feel so helpless when it comes to doing and being the people that you have created us to be and what you've called us to be and to do, Lord. But show us today through your word that by your grace we can be obedient to what you've called us to help us to simplify our faith in our lives by coming to you in humility, simplicity, and honesty. We pray these things in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right, friends, let's look at our readings today. The first one from the Book of Sirach, chapter 15. It reads this, if you will, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water. Stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him, for great is the wisdom of the Lord. He is mighty in power and sees everything. His eyes are on those who fear him, and he knows every deed of man. He has not commanded anyone to be ungodly, and he has not given anyone permission to sin. Our second reading comes to us from the book of First Corinthians, chapter two, and that reads this. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him, God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God and our Gospel. From Matthew, chapter 5, verses 17, through 37. And these are the words of Jesus. Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass away from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to the men of old, you shall not kill. And whoever kills shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council. And whoever says, you fool, shall be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Make friends quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. It was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again. You have heard it said to the men of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool. Or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. All right, my friends, what we're going to dig into today is the reality that it's all about our choices, isn't it? You know, that first reading in Sirach shows us that we can choose to follow God and that our choices can't be blamed on anyone or anything else other than ourselves. And that's a simple truth that we learn as a kid. But oftentimes it's something that we struggle with even as adults, because our behavior is oftentimes justified. Or we look at other people and say, well, this is what happened because of this. And the reality is we are held accountable for what we do, and our choices to follow God are what matter. And I know sometimes we can think to ourselves, this is just impossible. What can I do? And when you look at what Jesus says in the Gospel, it even sounds more impossible, doesn't it? Because the Jews lived according to this rule that was all about your behavior, what you did. But Jesus comes along and he elevates it. He raises the bar to not just what you do with your body, but what you think in your heart. And this is tough, isn't it? People think Jesus was some sort of weak, soft, you know, kind of hippie that's just like, oh, everything's cool, whatever. No, Jesus is terrifying sometimes, isn't he? Jesus doesn't leave room for our bad choices. Now, he will forgive us if we confess our sins to him, but that doesn't mean that we are off the hook when it comes to the choices that we make. And that's really what we need to own up to, isn't it? When you come into confession, do you let your answer simply be yes or no? Or do you tell a lot of stories? Do you make a lot of excuses? At the end of the day, what matters is how we approach God and recognizing that we have been given that choice. I love what it says, fire and water put in front of you. You get to choose. And every time we have a sin placed in front of us, we make a choice what we're going to do. And we can't shirk that responsibility, friends. And if that freaks you out, good. Freaks me out, too. Because our choice is ultimately is what stands in terms of our judgment. God has told us that he will forgive us if we fall under his mercy, or we will be Judged if we refuse his mercy. But, friends, you got to think about the power of choices. I have a friend who he goes around and he gives talks, and he calls his talks choices. And he has a little. An acronym. He wears them on these. On these. On his wristband. And I believe it says something like this. Choosing him over I choices changes everything. Yeah, I think I spelled that right. And his message is about that, because he's a man who made a Choice on his 21st birthday to go drinking with his brother. This was a young man that we knew very well, and he was a great kid. Is a great kid, right? He didn't get in trouble. Was the kind of guy you'd want to marry your daughter. And on his 21st birthday, he made a choice to go out and get trash with his brother. And his dad even told him, don't do this. He said, oh, it'll be okay. And he went out. And I don't want to recount the whole story, but let's just say this. Some tragic things happened that night that resulted in a man's life being ended. And he was held accountable for that, Went to prison. And even though he has no memory of the actual event because he was so drunk out of his mind, he has to live with the fact that the choices he made took another man's life. And he spent a lot of time paying for that. And he'll probably spend the rest of his life paying for that to a certain degree, because even though the Lord has forgiven him and he's paid his debt to society, he has to live with that. You know what? There's a reality of that sometimes the choices we make, even when we've been forgiven by God, we can have our sins absolved from us, and yet we still carry that pain, that guilt of the past, because of choices that we make. I'm not trying to condemn anybody here. What I'm trying to say is we have to recognize the severity of what we do. And we have to understand that when it comes down to it, none of us can act like, well, it didn't matter, or it wasn't my fault. We have to take responsibility, my brothers and sisters, for what we do. And, you know, Jesus words in the gospel really bring that home. Because he doesn't want us just to take responsibility for the things that we do, but the things that we want to do. Think about that. If you've, you know, you commit murder eye for an eye, right? But I'm telling you, whoever's angry at his brother has committed Murder, do not commit adultery. But whoever's lusted after a woman has committed adultery with her in his heart. Friends, it's the things that go through our minds that we're held accountable to do. That's why we have to be making those choices, not just at what am I going to do, but what am I going to think? Now, none of us can really control what we think from the standpoint of the initial thoughts that come into our heads. But we do have, by the power of God, the ability to take those thoughts captive. The Scripture tells us, take every thought captive to the knowledge of Christ. Because you have a choice to make even at that level, don't you? My friends, when someone is making you angry, you have a choice in that moment to decide whether you will feed that angry thought in your mind or whether you will cast it out when there's an opportunity for lust. You have to decide whether you're going to let that thought run and turn into something more than that or whether you're going to take that thought captive, whatever it might be. My friends, Jesus says it's not just about what we do. The choices that we make have to do with. With what we do in our minds and in our hearts. And maybe that even applies to things like unforgiveness and bitterness. Someone has wronged you and you have a choice to make. Are you going to hold that sin against them or are you going to forgive them? Are you going to let their bad choice turn into an excuse for you to make a bad choice? Or are you going to let that chain reactions stop with you? That's a choice that you make. A lot of the things that Jesus says here are tough, aren't they? They're difficult when you think about it. He's not here to make things easy. He says, don't think that I've come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Now, what does that mean? You know, what does it mean that he has fulfilled the law? Well, basically it means this. Even though we have choices, we are marred by sin. And we have been so corrupted that sin has overtaken us. And because of that, there's not one of us who can stand before God and say, I've always made the right choice. Jesus alone has made the right choice, right? If you think about that, Jesus fulfills the law perfectly in who he is, because he is God. Jesus fulfills the requirements of the law in that he lived the perfect life because he is God by his own power. I know someone say, well, what about the Blessed Virgin Mary. Did she? Well, in a sense. But remember, her fulfillment of what God gave to her was the result of his grace. The catechism says that she was saved by an act of grace that wasn't her own doing. She was the recipient of a great grace from God. Now, I'm not saying she never made choices, but I'm saying the ability to make those choices in the right way, that was given to her by God. That's an act of grace. And you want to know something? In your baptism, you have been given that grace, too. We've been sanctified. We've been washed in the blood of Christ. And all those bad choices that we've made, if we've confessed them to Him, The Bible says he is faithful and just and will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we have to stand in. In the reality that every day we are still faced with choices, aren't we? Jesus fulfilled the law. He didn't abolish it. He didn't say, nope, that's not important anymore. He said, you can't do it, so I will. But that doesn't get us off the hook for how we're to live. I mean, look at everything he says after that. Think about it. You know, I hear people who say things like, nope, all you have to do is believe in Jesus, and that's the only thing that matters. Nothing else matters after you believe in Jesus. That's the only thing required for salvation. But what do you do with these texts? What do you do with these things where Jesus says, look, you better forgive your brother from your heart or you're going to be handed over to judgment? He says, whoever says, you fool, shall be liable to the hell of fire, friends. That sounds like some accountability to me, doesn't it? After we're saved, the choices that we make come into place. Because here's the reality. Being saved, depending on how you look at it, isn't something that we step into fully until we're judged. People say, oh, are you saved? Well, you could say that in a certain sense. But ultimately our salvation isn't made real until we walk into heaven, is it? Until we've been judged. Because until then, there's the possibility that we could still make a bad choice. That choice to turn away from him through mortal sin. That choice to deny the faith and to walk away from him. And if we die in that unrepentant state where we say, God, I don't care about you. I don't want your mercy. I don't want your forgiveness, friends. That's a choice, too. And we'll be liable. Man, this is uplifting, isn't it? You know, on one hand, you think to yourself, this is very terrifying. But on the other hand, think about this. While you still have breath in your lungs, you still have the choice to turn to God. And it doesn't matter what's in your past. It doesn't matter what you've done. The choices you've made before really aren't what matters, because God can forgive and cleanse anything if you bring it to Him. You might say, oh, you don't know the sin that I've committed, Keith. Well, guess what? You don't know the sin I've committed. And I know that if I go to confession and confess that before the Lord, he will cleanse me, just like he will cleanse you. That's why we need to do it. That's why we need to recognize the gift that we've been given, my friends. And then, as we say in our act of contrition, I firmly resolve, by God's help, to avoid sin. That's a choice too, isn't it? Because sometimes the choice to sin really isn't the first bad choice that we make. Sometimes the first bad choice that we make has to do with the position that we put ourselves in, whether it be a near occasion of sin, a tempting situation, or an unwise environment. Or it may even be the choice not to put ourselves in a good environment. Not to go to that Bible study or go to that men's group or women's group, not to go to that opportunity that we've been invited to, to come close to the Lord or draw near to him through some, you know, activity related to our faith. Sometimes we separate ourselves from the Lord. And that's a choice. It's not to say, oh, I'm going to go commit murder or commit adultery. I'm not making that choice. I'm just choosing to be too busy to pray. I'm just choosing to be too busy to read the scripture or to take time to invest in my spiritual life, in my faith. Sometimes that choice that we make, the choice that seems innocent at the time, that seems like it's not related to sin. But it's a choice that says no to God in some small way, will oftentimes lead to a choice to saying no to God in a big way. So important, my friends, we got to remember that the world doesn't understand that. Remember what St. Paul says. He says the wisdom of this age and of the rulers of this age is doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, right? The world doesn't get it. The world can say, oh, you guys are too worried about things. You Catholics have all this Catholic guilt, or you're too scrupulous, or whatever. This. Whatever. You know what? Fine. The world isn't who judges us. Ultimately, my friends, it's God. The world doesn't get it. What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. See, God has made a choice to you. And his choice is to redeem you, to give you grace, to give you mercy, to call you to repentance and to call you to holiness and to call you into his kingdom and to give you such a great reward that when you see the choice he's made for you, then you'll realize that any choice you've made for him was more than worth it. Even if it cost you in this life, even if it was difficult. So what do we do? How do we make this real for us? My friends, remember this. You can follow God. You can do it. I know people. No, I can't. I'm such a worthless sinner. I'm so weak. I'm so weak. The scripture tells us that we have not been tempted beyond what we can endure. But God will provide a way of escape for every temptation that comes to us. Because there's no sin that you have to commit. You can always choose God by His grace. You're not stuck. You're not paralyzed. You might think you are, but the reality is, deep in your heart, you have that choice to make. We have to remember it's the spirit of God that gives us this wisdom and this truth, not the spirit of the world. And also remember this, my friends, keeping God's word is about what happens in your heart. That's where the choices really begin. If you think about it, when you're sitting down, you're ready to eat something, you're trying to be on a diet. You're trying to take care of yourself. The time to make the choice to eat healthy is not. If you have ordered a ginormous bacon double cheeseburger that's set in front of you, just drizzled in cheese sauce and french fries, and it's right in front of your face and it's in your hand like two inches from your mouth, that's not the time to make that choice. You've already made that choice. Think about it. By Then you're like, right there. The choice would have been better made when you said, hey, where should we eat tonight? What should we do? Should we go out? Maybe we should stay home. We'll eat healthier if we stay home. Oh, no, no, no. I'll make the. We can still go out. We'll do that. I was out to dinner with some friends one time years ago, and this one of the. One of the girls that we were with, she was on this big health kick. This still cracked me up when I think about it. And when she's like, I'm just gonna get, you know, get just something healthy, just something, you know. So we sat down to eat, and the waitress came over, and she goes, yeah, I'd like a fruit plate and a cheeseburger. It was so funny. And that, you know, she just, in that moment, buckled. The choice that should have been made was not to go in the first place, if you catch my drift. Sometimes we wait too long, and then that makes the choice way harder. Friends, about what happens in our heart. If you don't want to wrestle with that choice of anger, then be at peace. If you don't want to wrestle with that choice of lust, then quit looking at things you shouldn't be looking at. Quit going to places where that stuff's going to be around. If you want to not wrestle against the choice of weaving all these tales and all these lies and just let your answers be simply yes or no and stand in the reality of that, think about it. Where do the choices begin and where do they end? It starts in our heart, and this is revealed in our attitudes, in our relationships, and ultimately even how we revere God. You know, that's why Jesus said, don't swear by the temple. You know, recognize what you're doing. Have reverence. Have reverence for who God is and keep your faith humble, simple and honest. That's the bottom line, my friends. And always remember this. When we fail, we have an advocate with the Father who will forgive us. So make that choice as well. To confess our sins, to ask for his mercy. Remember one of the most simple prayers for God's mercy. You can pray. This is Jesus prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. You can pray that over and over and over and over. And when you feel overwhelmed by the bad choices that you've made, remember his choice is to forgive you and to cleanse you. I hope that brings you some peace and maybe even some resolve to make better choices. Maybe you're in the midst of some bad choices right now. And you know, it's. You're like, man, I'm making some bad choices. And I get it. You know, if that's you, let me just tell you this. The time to change that is right now. Because none of us knows how much time we have left on this earth to where we're going to be standing. Make amends with your accuser while you're on the way, lest you get handed to the judge. That's a call to say, look, you better get this worked out now before you stand before God, make that choice to confess that sin and to turn from that and to walk in holiness and purity. Friends, don't wait. Do what God's called you to do, because you can. Thanks so much for watching unpacking that mass, my friends. Hey, we're getting ready to start Lent. Are you ready for this? It's going to be here before you know it. And I pray that as we step into that, it would be a time for all of us where we're ready to say to the Lord, God, have your way in me. Your will be done in my life. It's always a great time for that. And I pray that unpacking the mask will help you get there. Thanks for watching, my friends. Take care. God bless.